MARC FOXX is pleased to present, ALONGSIDE, two simultaneous solo exhibitions by Portugese, Berlin based artist, Leonor Antunes and Argentinian, London based Amalia Pica, both in their first US exhibitions. Working with different concerns, materials and intentions both artists share an interest in site, histories and structures both social and political.

Forms of measurement are a key component in the work of sculptor Leonor Antunes. After deeply researching very specific places the artist begins to format systems and materials that have a conceptual relationship to the discovered data. Cut copper, brass, steel, leather, wood, and lighting have all been employed in projects that have explored, among others, Eileen Gray’s E-Villa in Roquebrune France, the constructions of the GDR of Berlin, the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy, and even the (re-) plantation of Tijuca Forrest of Rio de Janeiro, the largest urban tropical park in the world. In ALONGSIDE, Antunes brings her research done while on a recent Paris residence into focus. Having discovered that the metric system was put into it’s modern metric use (Please see full attached document) at the advent of the French Revolution, Antunes was able to study the information on this historic and monumental feat and in some cases, archival documentation by the original scientists. The resulting constructions of hanging marine rope and brass tubing provide abstracted 5 dimensional maps of France at the time of this endeavor to calculate a universal unit of measure dedicated to “all men and all times” and bring a transcendent humanity to this fact.

Leonor Antunes has exhibited, solely at the Museu da Republica in Rio de Janeiro, The Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto and Culturgest in Lisbon. Previous group exhibitions at the CAPC, Bordeaux, Air de Paris and Beautofrt 03 in Oostende, Belgium. Her past solo exhibitions include the Museu da Republica in Rio de Janeiro and Culturgest in Lisbon. Forthcoming exhibitions include the Kunstverein Dusseldorf, the Musee d’Art MOderne de la Ville de Paris and a special project at the Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Amalia Pica combines fact and fiction while addressing the origins of the culturally shared experience, myths, traditions and histories, to discuss the concept of the communicated idea. Materials from slide projections, Xerox wall murals, carved stone; film and video have been used in performative ways, thus exploiting their materiality. In the largest work in the exhibition Sorry for the metaphor #2, the artist has created a photomural using Xeroxed sheets applied directly to the wall. The vastly enlarged grainy image is of the artist standing with her back to the viewer on a stone mile marker, bullhorn at her side, facing a Casper David Fredrich like mountain-scape, possibly ready to read it the riot act, whimsicaly looking at arts attempt to communicate. Handmade semaphore flags are activated by the artist in a 35mm slide projection, which spells out words which are indicative to the notion of speaking while saying nothing (BABBLE, BLABBER, CHATTER, GIBBER, JABBER, PATTER, PRATTLE, RATTLE, YAMMER, YADA, YADA, YADA, 2010), one letter per slide. The themes of language and communication are mainstays in Pica’s work, manifesting in homemade radio antennas, bullhorns and even silence and pause.

Amalia Pica has forthcoming solo exhibitions at the Malmo Kunsthall and Galerie Diana Stigtero in Amsterdam. She has participated in group exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum and Kunsthalle Basel. This is her first exhibition in the United States.